Life, 1904-04-07 · page 14 of 41
Life — April 7, 1904 — page 14: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humorous essay by James Montgomery Flagg titled "The Bear," presented as an exaggerated personal anecdote. The author claims to have gone bear-hunting in the woods near his home, equipped with a telephone connected to his office stenographer to transcribe his "articles" in real-time. The satire targets several things: the author's self-aggrandizing pretense (calling himself "a brother to the Bear"), his pseudo-intellectual affectations (wearing "macassars"—Indian sneakers—and claiming to whistle "Hiawatha"), and the absurdity of modern conveniences intruding on nature (a telephone in the woods). The accompanying illustrations show comical scenes with bears. The story's centerpiece is a fabricated "whopper"—an obviously tall tale about a bear cub trapped, struggling free with its hind legs completely hairless, then being warmed by its mother with a blanket. The humor lies in the obvious exaggeration presented as sincere reporting.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“LIFE: Wid, Animal Whobbers THE BEAR. hung up my telephone, was a young cub who was grunting and in a most pitiable plight. It had been caught by its hind flippers in a trap. As I watched, the plucky cub twisted and pulled, and pulled and twisted, until it had freed itself from the trap, minus all the fur on its hind legs from its st down. I nearly laughed out loud as it stood up and looked down at its poor bare little legs that were as cleanly shaved as a priest's cheeks, With a whimper it toddled off a few yards and flung itself crying in its old mother’s lap. I don’t know what brand of bears they were. Whether they were black, grizzly, cinnamon, sassafras or plain vanilla, but I shall look it up when I get back, as I have a very vivid impression as to their general looks—they had no tails—of that I am positive. But wait—-the best is coming. There was an old piece of blanket lying on the dead leaves near the bears. The mother bear, noticing how her offspring was shivering, URELY naturalism is good business ! Since I have de: my time to the pages of the Girlies’ Steam Radiator Companion 1 have been oppressed with the there won't enough animals to keep me going till I earn that hundred thousand new species being discovered, whose private lives have not been looked into I went out I carried rearms on this raid—nor search-warrants, either, You see, I am a brother to the Bear—he doesn't know it, of course, but Lam. I had never seen any bears before to-day—except some of those very poor pictures of them in dictionaries, but I had never yet seen any live bears. I find my typewriter was too slow, so I carried a telephone with me that I had connected with the office, where they have a special stenographer detailed to wait for my articles, and she takes them down red-hot from the front. I fastened my eagle feather in my hair and slipped on my macassars—(that is the Indian word for a ~ { sneakers—hence, stockings, being against the sneakers, are i 7 . - en called ‘ anti-macassars "" !) I always dress in a semi-Indian We i i 2G way. rather like it myself, and they ask me to do it—my eet 5 , ops Me publishers, you know—it’s a real good ad—and started off : to the woods. It is hard to see the woods for the houses around up my way—but I soon discovered some bears before they saw me (it’s a wonder to me they didn't hear me, as I was whistling ‘‘ Hiawatha”’ in that bird-like note -vhich is peculiar to my whole family). ‘The first bear I saw from behind the tree, where I quickly Minus all the fur on his hind legs)" tn Hag: comicbooks.com